


Give Me Your Tomorrow

by jenni3penny



Series: McAvoys 1.0 [8]
Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-09 05:22:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13474545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenni3penny/pseuds/jenni3penny
Summary: Pre-series. Will tries to help Mac move but there's a whole lotta Brian still hanging around.





	1. Chapter 1

Something in his chest flashpans cold and he very suddenly understands so much more. He suddenly sees, with acute and finite understanding, why she's so cautiously reserved about answering his attempts at loving the shit out of her. Because she's standing in the middle of her own kitchen with both hands lifted against her mouth, fingers against her lips unconsciously as she glares at the open coffee mug cupboard. One of them, right to the front and nearer the left (nearest the coffee pot) is a ceramic Times cup, probably five-finger-lifted right directly from one of their offices.

Brian's worked the New York Times. He's worked the Post. Newsweek and Time Magazine. The man's written glam bits for Esquire and lived in the gutters at AP. He's worked CNN's Triad despite being a print man.

And that cup is giving her a freaking fit, even if it is both silent and internal.

Brenner is everywhere around them and he's just now really noticing it, noticing the signs that he'd missed on other occasions (when he'd been utterly distracted by her and her messy at-home ponytail). It's easier to see the physical reality of it as she sorts her apartment, packing her things into boxes. Because the pile of Brian's leftover things is immense and it's leaving him without a couch to lounge on, per usual. The pile of things that remind her of Brian is near as daunting, overflowing one of her living room chairs (and, “ _Honestly, Billy, I'd really rather just be rid of it all together_.” just makes him worry that she's never going to entirely let the other man go unless she faces it head on).

Will sets down the two empty boxes he'd brought into the kitchen, quietly gentling them to the floor instead of the breakfast island. “Kenzie?”

“Mac,” she whispers to the side with a netted distraction, a couple of fingertips still pressing on her bottom lip. “You usually call me ' _Mac_ ' and he rarely does. It just... it's different from you. ' _Kenzie'_ , I mean. And - ”

“I get it.” He frowns a little but makes sure it doesn't taint his tone too much. She's never had an issue with him calling her by nicknames before. She's always seemed all right with both ' _Kenzie_ ' and ' _Mac_ ' and he can only imagine that in this space... it probably has way more to do with Brenner than with him. He wants to be angry but he wants to be gentle for her at once. “Wanna take a break?”

“I'm sorry,” shushes past her lips, as though just a breath from her lungs and making the sound of words rather than language itself. As though she can breathe life into the feeling of apology rather than linking language to it. He feels himself shrug it off despite the fact she doesn't even notice the movement.

“Don't be.” He lays his hand onto her shoulder, squeezes in a way that's meant to be supportive. After a moment of stillness he leans up her back and lets his palm softly stretch along her collarbone, looping his arm against her while he kisses against the opposite side of her head. “You were with him a long time. I know that, Mac.”

She stiffens a moment and he loosens the hold he has on her, at least until she relaxes again, until she turns her face against the side of his neck. She grabs against him and holds tight, winds her fingers around his forearm as she breathes against him. “I'm sorry.”

Will just nods as she exhales, hot breath misting against his throat before she wriggles around under his arm and turns, cuddling up into the way he's already got an arm looped around her. It seems that she simply can't face her dinnerware and he can't stop staring at the dumbest fucking coffee mug to ever play a pivotal part in his romantic life. “Moratorium on apologies til you're outta this apartment. All right?”

“You can call me either. I didn't mean to imply that - ”

“MacKenzie, stop,” he hushes against her temple, lifting his hand to pry into her hair. He digs into the dark of it and tips her head back purposely, looking down over pinked cheeks and a whole lot of beautifully embarrassed McHale. She's sorta guiltily gorgeous when she's behaved like an insecure moron and she knows it.

“You're really very pretty, y'know?” he tells her with a growing grin and subtly hushed teasing. “Which is a blessing because sometimes you're not all that swift.”

She laughs but the sound is small and the effort is huge and it takes too much. She just lays her head forward until she can avoid the way he's studying her face. “I don't even know who I am, Will.”

The way she says it is such a weighted admission that he blinks surprise and confusion over her, absolutely thrown by how serious she is in saying it.

He's met Insecure MacKenzie often enough before but she's never been so tightly pressed against him and begging for some security, some stability or assurance. She's never been quite this lacking in confidence, at least not since they've _really_ been together. Like, _together_. It throws him off balance for a moment and all he wants to do is lash out against Brenner, he wants to break the other man down incrementally, piece by fucking piece. Then he feels her shift closer, a sighed sound exhaling off her and he thinks he could never actually put her in a position to see that happen.

“Honey, I know exactly who you are.” He lifts one hand to rub her hair back off her face, marveling at how long it's gotten and the fact that he hadn't even noticed until now, when he can tangle his fingers up in it. “MacKenzie Morgan McHale.”

She blinks rapidly, surprised that he knows her middle name, surprised by how tenderly he says it. “How do you... you're perfect, you know?”

“I'm really not,” he chuckles back and tugs at the tips of her hair. “Let's take a walk. We'll get lunch.”

Mac just shakes her head against it and leans forward, presses her cheek against the front of his shoulder. She's wrapped up around the middle of him and there's not much in the world he finds sexier than looking down and seeing her clasped around him. Even if her hair is a mess and she's sorta sweaty and he's not even sure what she's wearing on the bottom half would actually be considered pants? Certainly not anything she'd usually be caught dead in outside one of their apartments or the gym. That said... He loves the fact the skin-tight fabric hugs the curves of her calves.

“I have food here,” she argues, shaking him back to reality.

“You need to get outta here, though. C'mon,” he urges, roughing the flats of his palms against her upper arms while she clutches tighter around him and firmly stands her ground. He can damn well feel her dig in and ' _Stubborn_ ' couldn't possibly be a real word itself without MacKenzie McHale around to represent it.

“ _No_ , Will. I want to be finished.”

He's not going to win against that tone and when she's so sharp he really has to consider whether or not he wants to fight it, whether he really wants to rub against the sharp edges and end up scraped.

And, really, when she's already insecure and frenetic and a little too manic? He'll give in and compromise. “Can you let me cook then? I'll make you some dinner while you go work on another room and we'll worry about the kitchen later. Yeah?”

“It's the mug. It's... looking at it just... well - ”

“I know that, babe.” He kisses brightly against her temple before shunting her toward the door. “Now get the hell out of the room so that I can smash it into a million pieces already.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Kenz?” He catches her shoulders in his palms, squeezes against them as he steps up behind where she's completely stalled still in the kitchen. She surveys the table in a stunned sort of silence, studying the way he's set the table and prepared, God, an _entire_ meal. Sides and bread and wine. He kisses her temple sharply and squeezes once again on her shoulders and she's not quite sure where he even found a bottle of wine. Or the cork screw. “Sit, honey. Eat.”

Mac half turns her head, listening to him even as she leans farther into the spiced scent of something delicious. Her stomach growls damn near on cue and she licks against her lips, watching him pull out a chair for her. “Bathroom is completely finished.”

“Yeah?” He nods even as she sits and she can feel his shin press into the leg leg of the chair, his hip balancing pressure on the other side so that her entire seat juts forward and he's so fucking good at that, damn it. He's got that gentlemanly thing down so well, so fine tuned. “So, kitchen and bedroom to go? That's it?”

Mac just sighs, studies the table before her. “You really made dinner.”

She's sorta stunned that he's gone to so much trouble because her entire apartment is a mess of shambles, kitchen included (and also her emotions, obviously). Still, he's sweetly got the table laid out and dressed, right down to the fact he's already got her wine poured, chilled and breathing. His own chair is half out from the table and he's leaned over serving before she has the paper towel napkin neatly across her lap and she's sorta thankful that she's already splashed some water over her face and washed her hands. It smells so good that she'd hate to have to get up again. Especially considering the fact that his patience seems momentarily infinite and the heat of him feels good even from one chair over. She likes his presence, likes him in her kitchen. There's something about this particular version of domesticity that balances her, soothes her nerves and assures her that moving in with him is natural progression and not a rush.

“I said that I would,” he shrugs off, putting two big spoonfuls of a veggie and rice something or other onto her plate before he loads his own.

“I thought you meant sandwiches or - ”

“Poor man's stir fry,” Will murmurs as he sits, tucks his own chair in. 

“It smells really delicious.” The smile he wears after the compliment is brief but honest and Mac matches it unconsciously while she reaches for her fork. “The bedroom is mostly finished.”

“Still a bed?” he asks at the same time she takes her first bite and he instantly grins wide in response to the way she moans pleasure over the excellently spiced food. She's always had spectacularly crap timing (even moreso as a child) and it seems that the dinner table isn't ever exempt from her accidental hilarity.

She can feel her cheeks blush up, the other hand rising to block her mouth and cheeks as she chews and swallows. “Of course.”

“We're gonna make use of it tonight.” He says it so casually and without looking up, no need for a wink-wink-nudge. It's sensual when he so gently says it that way, smooth and stretching warm like pulled caramel. She thinks it's a little decadent of him to say it so possessively, without asking or even looking at her for permission. It's factual, it's ownership, it's also still flush with adoration.

And it's a given; she's in his bed at night (or strike that, reverse it).

Mac smiles and takes another bite, chewing even as he catches the way she's looking at him and reflexively grins in answer. “I think you like taking care of me, McAvoy. I think you need someone to take care of, don't you?”

“And maybe someday I'll tell you why,” Will answers gently, the words slow but sincere as he nods and waves his fork minutely. “But I do, very much, like taking care of you. Yes.”

She's suddenly very interested in knowing the very reason a man like Will would need to take care of a pain in the ass of her particular ilk. It tugs on her curiosity just the same as a good story would, has her studying his strong features as he swirls his fork through his stir fry, mixing things up a little more. It isn't intentional, reaching for him and tracing her fingertips along his temple and hairline. But once she's committed to the movement she takes advantage of it, strokes her fingers into his hair and pushes it back unnecessarily. He's handsome and his features are strong, angled and attractive and she likes to watch him sometimes, just for those moments when he's not trying to be handsome.

Because that's when he's ten times as sexy.

It's her following stillness and silence as he lifts a forkful that has him pausing, food halfway to his mouth and confusion on his features. “What?”

Mac simply curls her fingertips behind his ear and then lets her hand slope down his neck, his shoulder and off his arm. “You do? Really?”

“Usually. Eat your dinner.”

She smiles as she realizes that he's getting embarrassed, that he's gone flushed pink-ish. “Will...”

“Just eat, Mac.”

She pouts at him a little before jamming her fork into her food. “Okay.”

And she can't help but match the shy smile he's got half lifted over the table at her, the near vulnerable little half grin that's tugging on his lips. It makes him look younger than he is, endearing and sweet and charming, bright in the eyes and innocent – more innocent than she is, by far. She forces herself to exhale and grin at back him as she eats the delightful dinner he's made her, suddenly very aware that this man is... this man is so much more than she'd _ever_ expected to find sitting behind the shoddy desk that sits atop the tipped mountain of everything they're trying to accomplish.

“Thank you, Will,” she says clearly, solidly. She smiles at him, bright and genuine and exactly the same smile she'd given him when they'd very first met. Gratitude, when it comes to Will, is easily made and always sincere. And she acutely remembers the surprise that rounded his eyes the very first time she gave him a real, unforced, smile. The look on his face now is an echo of that first flustered encounter.

“You're welcome,” he says and blushes visibly, obviously flushed as he uses his fork to point at her food and distract from his shyness, his embarrassment. “Eat.”

 

* * *

 

 

She likes the fact that he can wrap around her and make her feel petite but compact, fragile but impervious at once. There's something to be said for the fact he's a tall and long man, lanky but strong behind her on the couch. When he draws her back into his chest and between his legs she feels enclosed, protected, but caressed. She likes it when he hugs her back and closes his arms around her, turns his face into her hair and hums a few measures of something that's familiar to her but... she just can't place it exactly. The television is unplugged and sitting on top of a pile of boxes. He also doesn't have his guitar and they haven't gotten the newspaper and so he's just finished reading the last chapter of 'The Town and the City' for her. Because it was the first thing she'd grabbed off the half packed shelf, mostly finished for nearly a year.

“Why do you feel like you need to protect me, Billy?” she asks, turning her head just a fraction, just so his humming edges on her earlobe and sends a delicious shiver down the entire length of her spine.

He murmurs indecipherable lyrics lazily against the back of her ear before nipping his teeth on her earlobe and making her sigh. “Because you're small and delicate and completely unaware of your body.”

He hums a few more notes of the mystery song, just over a measure before he cuts it off and kisses against her hair, chuckling as she silently pouts. “You weigh less than a large dog unless you're sopping wet and you routinely walk into table corners or door frames and - ”

“I'm being serious, Will.” She finds that she ends up using a stressed tone with him when they're curled up together like this and she wants to have a conversation. Because he'd always rather just cradle together and laze. “I want a serious answer.”

“Because, unfortunately, I can't care about something - ”

“Someone?” she chirps quickly, correcting him as he rubs his fingers against her scalp.

“ _Someone_...” he corrects into a long exhalation, digging his hand into her hair and lightly tugging her head sidelong so they can look at each other, really look, “and not feel an undeniable need to protect them.”

“Tell me why - ”

“At all costs,” he finishes, as though he hasn't heard her interruption (though she damn well knows he has).

“Will - ”

“Because you can't take the hit and I can,” he demands and likely more sharply than he'd meant. Because he shirks back a little right after the words have thudded between them and he's shrugging farther down into the couch cushions, against the arm, and farther away from the way she's looking at him with pained surprise. Because she has an extraordinarily poor habit of pushing when she should let up. It gets her into trouble more often than not.

Mac slowly considers her words before she says them and it's not often that happens but when he's this rattled and already shrinking away from her... “I can take a hit, Will.”  
She realizes quickly how careful she has to be, when he reflexively shakes his head at her and a breath huffs past his lips in disbelief. He's separating himself from her even as she's still pressed back against him. She realizes, very suddenly, that he's curling himself up and away from her and so, gingerly, she keeps them connected anyhow.

And that full realization of what was likely done to him, that realization is born by the thin skin around his eyes, the way it winces and tightens translucent as he just minutely shakes his head. “Not like this.”

His voice is small and it's the only time a man so large and formidable to her has seemed so possibly broken, so probably damaged, so conquered. She hates it already.

It's not her Will McAvoy, not this man.

Except, she knows, it truly is her Will, the ultimately guarded version.

Because she only has the man he is because of what's been done to him.

“Billy... he hit you? And your mum?”

He mutters something under his breath and then laughs and the sound is dark, disdainful and grated hot from between his lips, sparked with disgust. It takes a moment before he recovers and breathes in audibly and she stays perfectly still, waits until his hand reaches for her once again and pulls on her shoulder. It takes a few moments to bring him back to comfortable, to bring them back together so that he can loop a forearm along her collarbone and kiss the opposite side of her head.

“Honey, he didn't hit any of 'em after I started hitting him back. Except when I wasn't around.”

She's got excellent timing, she does. Obviously.

Because it seems to be an unscheduled evening of making Will McAvoy feel like shit for nothing but being a goddamn gentleman.

“I'm so sorry, Will,” she tells him, her voice true and stripped bare of anything contrived, of any forced emotions. She just says exactly what she means. “He's still alive, though?”

“Yeah, he is,” he muffles into the side of her neck, his breath misty hot against her skin as he avoids looking at her. Sometimes when he gets this close, presses this warmly, she forgets that not long before him there was a time (quite a long while) when another man claimed her. Or thought he had a right to, rather.

Will has the right, though... And she never gave it to him so much as just realized he already possessed it.

So she simply angles her head to allow him more space, to let him bury his face against her. “And you don't talk?”

“Mac...” He sighs against her, leaning farther forward and really wrapping her up once again, clasping them together and tangled. “I really... Not much, no. We don't talk. Especially after my mother died.”

“You can talk to _me_ if you like.” She waits and whispers it as he's already started humming along again and something that sounds like the words ' _love through sorrow_ ' lays against the side of her neck as he sing-songs on her skin. She feels him half laugh after instead of continuing, a tenderly bemused chuckle before he lifts his head just enough to kiss her temple.

“I know,” Will murmurs, the words warm and soft in her hair. “Thank you.”

“Now what in the _hell_ have you been humming?”

“It's Bobby Darin,” he says as he lifts her jaw, so dreamily in tone and effortlessly in loving. It utterly kills any of the remaining anxiousness from earlier in the evening, just utterly slays her stress as she falls deeper into the way he's got her tangled back into his chest. “You need to be educated.”

“I _am_ educated,” she argues, near petulantly. And it's a millisecond before his arm loops lower and his fingers dig just below her ribs on her right side, tickling at her as she sucks in a strangled and yelping laugh. “Don't you dare.”

She can damn near feel the Cheshire grin radiate off him as the other hand drops down her other side and teases at her, making her squirm ticklish. “Some things you just don't learn at Cambridge, sweetheart.”

“Will!”


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I actually had most of this written already and just messed with it a little to try and fit it here. I also used it to answer a Tumblr prompt challenge from 'whufc'. Enjoy! Hopefully!

“MacKenzie?”

She's Will's girlfriend, really. Recent development, top news headline.

William McAvoy, one of CNN's top co-anchors, on a television near you.

And she's his girlfriend. Jesus, the man asked her to move in so... doesn't that mean more than girlfriend? Marginally more than girlfriend but considerably less than fiance?

(And isn't that just a bit terrifying, really? Just a bit more than she'd planned or expected. Not that she'd complain but... It's fast, it's strong, so strong, it's quicker than expected.)

Regardless, the fact that she _is_ his girlfriend is what she keeps telling herself once she's heard Brian's voice out in the hall, swerving into the entry way and living room.

She purposely hasn't seen him in days (more than a week now), hasn't answered his calls or texts or emails.

“Kenz? You're moving, apparently?” There's surprised bitterness in his voice and she's already tired, already whipped by the tone of it. It's bitter but small and she can only imagine that it's because she's actually surprised him.

She's intentionally avoided him up until now and _now_ only exists because she needs him to take the rest of his things from her life. It's the only possible way she could start to erase the last four months of perpetual fuck-ups from her relationship history. It's the only way she can at least pretend to have a teensy scrap of self-fucking-respect when Will so proudly introduces her as his girlfriend to a stranger.

Brian needs to be the past and stay there, _and goodbye_.

“Apparently,” she agrees, keeping her tone as dry and blank as possible. She keeps a distance but aims toward the boxes she's stacked “I didn't know what to do with these.”

“You look upset, Kenz,” he flicks off, intentionally more relaxed. He's obviously assessed the situation already with his quick dark eyes and nimble brain. And the quick workings of that brain have already devised a strategy – and it seems that strategy is closer to lulling her calm rather than openly starting a screaming match. “What's going on? You need a place to crash?”

She lifts her shoulders, rebuttal prepared and ready to snipe at him for his assumptions.

But he's smiling at the photo in his hand and it surprises her. It's one from the top box of his things, one of her up on his back for an impromptu pony ride and he can't stop grinning when he holds it up to show her. “Fucked like wildfire that weekend, all weekend. You remember?”

Of course she remembers.

She'd been more in love in that moment than she'd ever been for any moment before it. “I remember.”

It seems dim now, though. That love in particular.

“I miss laughing together,” he tells her and she can see just the softest flicker of that man she'd actually fallen in love with. God he's right there almost, like the ghosting of an image after flicking an old television off by the knob. _Oh_ , he's still there, somewhere, fading... “I'll admit it.”

She's missed the laughter. She's missed the days of him wanting her.

She reflexively half smiles and catches the quirk of his lips, the way he double blinks before looking down the front of her. “It was so good in the beginning, Mac. Remember? So passionate.”

“I remember,” she whispers, a shrug from her left shoulder.

This is the absolute worst idea in the world, being here, the two of them at once and alone.

And what's even worse is that she knows it well ahead.

She never, _never_ , should have let Will leave.

 

* * *

 

 

She doesn't know how they got here, in the kitchen they once shared. She has absolutely no idea.

Because moments ago she was describing Will's apartment (while inexplicably omitting the fact that he lives there).

And now Brian's got a hand between her legs, two fingers stroking fabric. He slowly teases her knickers damp while he kisses beard burned encouragement against the side of her neck and she's just holding on, eyes squeezed shut.

“Come on, Kenz.” He says it quietly, on a low hummed whisper while he turns his head to watch her face. His other hand lifts her left leg and he hooks his hand up under her knee, forcing her thighs farther open so that he's got more room. She rolls her hips into the movement,whimpering into the familiarity of his smaller and thinner hands. “That's right. Good girl.”

“Brian - ” Wait. Hold the fucking train up – not this time.

She can't end up in bed with him this time. Not again. Not ever. Goddamnit.

She cannot end up in bed with Brian. Again. Because she shares one with Will, actually...

She hasn't moved toward her bed an inch, because now she sleeps in Will's bed.

 _Oh, God_... Will is never going to let her back into his bed. Never. Not ever.

Not if she lets Brian back between her legs again and so... “No, I - ”

“Relax, it's fine.”

It's _not_ fine. Because he's _not_ Will.

Will McAvoy: the man she's _actually_ (silently) in love with.

Her beautifully noble, perfectly sweet William.

Who wants to protect her. Who she's utterly betrayed. Over and again.

“Brian. Stop,” she tells him, the taste of bile rising up the back of her throat and threatening to do worse than just burn a straight line up and down the core of her. She could just vomit as she shoves them apart entirely. Oh, she could kill herself sick. “ _Stop_.”

“What the fuck, MacKenzie?”

“Get out.” This has to be the end. She can't fathom Will finding out what she's done, how often she's done it, who it's been with. She has to get out of this place, the apartment, this moment, all of it. But, God, he's gotta get out first. “Just get out.”

Fuck, it may possibly be the very first time she's ever been so relieved to see Brian Brenner leave her all on her own.

 

* * *

 

 

She's only called him in answer to the three texts he'd sent her since morning, all of them kind.

Because she guiltily could have avoided his voice all afternoon long. “Hey.”

“Hey, hon.” He's distracted and his voice tells her that he's trying to make her a priority but that work has more of his attention than she does. She happens to know for a fact that it's exactly the same tone she uses with him half the time he calls and so she really can't hold it against him. “How'd it go?”

Mac exhales slowly, wedges the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she reaches for a pad of Post It notes out of the small box she'd left on his kitchen island. It's all miscellaneous items that had tracked from her entry way to her kitchen counter and mostly pens, papers, notes and little things. “I told him to get the fuck out and then left his things in the hall?”

Will makes an audible wincing sound, breath through his teeth, “Oh... So, that well, huh?”

She unconsciously scrawls ' _I love you_ ' slowly and intently onto the little three by three slip of neon green paper and it looks so very strange to her, those words in her handwriting. It's as though someone else took hold of her hand and curled the words onto the paper in a slightly slanted and long curved cursive. She's never been adept at saying such things, even when not physically saying them.

She stares at it a moment, not debating its veracity so much as her rights to the words, the emotions involved. It's a moment too uncomfortably long and she lifts it, slapping it to the front of the coffee pot and studying its presence in his (their?) home with a judiciously tipped head. Just its existence implies a level of domesticity she isn't sure she's earned yet... Not with the Brian situation hanging so heavily over her, darkening her mood as she unpacks her things.

“Kenz?”

“He's not thrilled,” she tells Will quickly, snatching the paper back and crumpling it up into her palm. She holds it balled in her fist as she squeezes her eyes shut and exhales. She can't say it yet, not after what she's done, not yet. “Listen... can we just stay in tonight? Just you and I?”

She's not sure she deserves to be the woman who leaves ' _I love you_ ' notes stuck to his coffee maker yet. But she's willing to work for it. To earn it and in spades.

She wants to be that woman, and for him.

“I'm fine with staying home. I have the Hartman interview to prepare for anyhow.”

Oh, she wants in on that. She's spent the better part of two months trying to get that particular interview in the line up and maybe if the two of them are caught up together working it'll be comfortable, it'll ease the awkwardness of the new arrangement. If they're working they can find that same simpatico, that comfortably warm pattern that seems to sustain them both. “Want some help?”

“I'd like that.” He's smiling as he agrees and she can hear it in his voice, she can hear pleasure in Will McAvoy's inflections without much effort at all anymore. It's known now.

“I can make dinner then? Instead of ordering in? Maybe steak?”

“Mac, you can do whatever you want. It's _literally_ your place too,” he assures quietly.

Right... her place too. “Bring home a bottle of wine?”

The both of them are completely aware that he's got a fully stocked wine rack (though maybe haphazardly chosen and _not_ with an especially refined palate) - but he doesn't remind her of that, not at all. And, for her part, she ignores the knowledge just in trade, just to be able to instead ask that he bring something home, just to create that moment. Because that's so much of what he wants, she knows that much. He wants that compatibility, that balance.

And maybe it's a little bit of what the both of them need from each other.

Because she could use some balancing out herself.

So he neglects to tell her that they already have plenty of wine and sounds smitten as he breathes out an answer over the phone line, “Sure, babe. Anything else?”

She drops the crumpled note into the garbage and quickly scribbles up another, whipping it off the pack and pressing it hard to the plastic casing of the coffee maker.

Mac grins reflexively, her handwriting much more currently appropriate and welcoming to the words ' _You're my favorite_ ' as she lets that smile fill up the sound of her voice. “No, I think that's all.”

“It's gonna be close to eight, I think.”

Mac can feel herself start to pout and she's surprised by it, actually. Suddenly she could do with a little McAvoy-style comforting and she's disappointed by how far off it now seems. “Sooner, Will.”

He coughs out a laugh and it warms his voice to gentle and thrumming as he answers, “I'll try.”

She thinks maybe she'd needed the phone call after all as she purposely leaves the Post Its on the counter beside the coffee pot.

**Author's Note:**

> Bobby Darin, 'If I Were a Carpenter'. Listen to it.


End file.
